What a Christmas!

Well, Christmas is over. All that build up for it to end with.. well, with me hovering near the toilet. But more on that later..

Not including my childhood Christmases, this was definitely one of the best and busiest. I know many people were very homesick, but as I'm used to not being with all my family at this time, I really enjoyed myself. Never have I been surrounded by so many decorations and friends nor attended so many parties! Yes, working on Christmas was a pain, but I can't knock China for that..I chose to be here during this holiday!
And anyways, they may not know "the meaning of Christmas" (does anyone know anymore, Charlie Brown?), but they do know how to decorate! Every mall had a huge display outside, every convenience store had Santa stickers on their door, and even the supermarkets played some Christmas music.

We were a bit worried that the lasers this mall was shooting was affecting nearby planes. It's also 3 blocks from our house.

The first party I went to was at my apartment for my roommate's class. The one other American bought catered food...a real thanksgiving dinner (finally)! It was crowded and international.
The next party I went to was dubbed the "Unofficial company party" at one of the teacher's apartments. We all brought food, I dressed as Santa, and we all had a great time at the White Elephant gift exchange. There was a lot of Wine and Chocolate combos!

Santa and some of her reindeer

My third party was the official company party. Looking snazzy, we all went to a hotel and celebrated with our foreign and Chinese coworkers alike in games, a raffle, and a buffet. I won a thermos!

                                     

the company

Finally, Christmas Eve the crew at 11D went over to our better half, 5A, and celebrated the holiday as a family. I'm so thankful for the Oregon crew I came here with and the friends we've met along the way. My Chinese language tutor and her boyfriend joined us as well. We discussed their pending move to New York for university! With another fun White Elephant exchange and a lot more wine and chocolate, I was very happy with my Christmas season.
On Christmas day, I worked a bit and then headed back to 5A. This time we ordered food (Indian again!) and sat in front of the tv and watched some movies. Perfect.
Although....I was starting to feel a little funny.

Some of the kooky family

On the 26th, I woke up feeling awful! As I met a fellow foreign coworker at the subway, she expressed that she was feeling the same along with many of our other friends! I connected the dots, checked my symptoms, called my mom, and called in the diagnosis...food poisoning! After making it through half the day, I went home to stay near my bed and my toilet. The rest of the week I've been slowly recovering.
At my school, I explained a bit of Christmas last week with a short Rudolph film. This week, we decorated a Christmas tree and reviewed all those odd Christmas words (why is it 'Stocking' and not 'Christmas sock', they ask and what's a 'bauble' ?!) I definitely loved how excited all my kids were when entering my classroom to see the Christmas tree and tell me Merry Christmas or 圣诞快乐 ! (which is very close to "Happy Birthday" so we had some confusion)
Best of all was at the end, my grade 5 culture class which I cherish so much on Fridays because we can actually hold conversations received a package full of Christmas ornaments from kids back in America..

grade 5 culture class: penpals to the 'Rainbow Stars' Wilani CampFire club

*A special thank you to the friends and family who sent me gifts. The common themes were 1. warm clothing (7 pairs of socks!) and 2. food (cheese and peanut butter themed). Shucks, you guys know me so well! I know it can be a bit of an undertaking to send packages here so I really truly appreciate the love.

So what's next? Well, China has a pretty funny way of doling out its holidays. Remember for the Mid-Autumn festival how I had to work Saturday to get the next week off? Well New Year's is here! Here's the plan:
Monday Dec 31: work
Tuesday Jan 1-Thursday Jan 3: off
Friday Jan 4: work
Sat. Jan 5: work!
Sun. Jan 6: work!
Monday Jan 7-Friday Jan 11: work 
 Oh yeah, that's an 8 day work week baby!! 
But then, after I'm about to collapse...I'm off for Chinese New Year!!! A month of freedom! Where shall I go???? More on that later, but I promise you, it's epic!